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On Turning Fifty One thing about turning fifty that surprised me is that it causes you to stop and reflect. It doesn’t matter if you want to stop and reflect- it just happens. Sometimes the thoughts slide peacefully across your brain and you are embraced by memories. Other times a thunderclap of realization strikes you, and lightning bolts of images flash through your mind. For me, this happened in an eternal millisecond at my 50th birthday party. I thought of the people who didn’t make it to this milestone, losing battles to cancer, or freakish unfair accidents. The people I’ve met who walk this earth carrying burdens I can’t imagine, never mind endure. I thought about my cousin who is ten days younger than me and preparing for a bone marrow transplant. I thought about her husband and teenage daughter.I thought of all of you who have handled this transition so gracefully. You continue, adjust, create. One of the greatest gifts I’ve received is finding a group of women friends who revel in life. They kayak, throw excellent parties, golf, and travel fully engaged in the business of life and joy. Thank God they’re here, sharing their wisdom and experiences, reminding everyone that achieving age is just a number. I thought of the tremendous kindness I’ve been shown in my life. Mrs. Hay owned the West Concord Shoe store and gave me a new pair of shoes to start the school year with – every year. I thought of Marie who has been my friend since third grade and the blessing of having conversations that don’t require a preamble of history and context. And the guys in karate, who to a man are strong and fit yet have never felt the need to unnecessarily demonstrate their power. I thought of my friends who write who are unstinting in their encouragement and honest in their criticism. Whoever it was that first taught me to read because I can’t recall I time when I couldn’t and anyone who ever played or sang a single note of music with me. Those two skills sustained my soul. I thought of the first time I took a chance on love, the silken tension between desire and risk. I thought of love shattering my heart and then healing it. I thought of my family and the incredible gift of having parents alive who love me. My sisters who cajole me into being a better human and provide me with perspectives I couldn’t otherwise obtain. I thought of my brother who bought and installed a bug zapper at my house because he knew it would be helpful. My other brother who said “Let’s get some people together and go out and celebrate on a boat.” I thought of time. At fifty, you can’t help but figure that you aren’t here too much longer: the time passed is likely more than the time you have left. You worry that you’ve squandered it and start analyzing the past: I can’t really recall year one, but it was likely not productive. I’m pretty sure that I had toilet training accomplished by the age of two, but that was probably the highlight of the year. I almost didn’t get out of Kindergarten because I was flummoxed by shoe tying. Bunny ears? I can’t even find the head. Where’s the rest of the rabbit? To this day, I still prefer slip ons. But then you realize the analysis itself is flawed. So what if you spent more time writing love letters to your girlfriend in high school honors biology than paying attention to the lectures, and you only passed because your lab partner was generous with her excellent notes? Who cares that when you attempted to run the Middlesex Eleven you were beaten by a paunchy old man who was literally smoking a cigar as he ran by you? And other than getting a couple of degrees and staggering out of the halls of higher learning under a truckload of debt, what the heck did you do with your twenties? And then you don’t worry about it because you made some great decisions in your thirties and married someone wonderful on one of the best days of your life when you crossed the threshold to your forties. The condition of the world starts to bother you. You cringe when you hear politicians spread fear, bemoaning the loss of American exceptionalism, thinking that if we have to talk about it instead of demonstrating it we are doomed as a society. You realize that there are people who are intellectually limited, as well as people who are too afraid to be anything but small minded, but when it comes to the people who opt to be mean, I am still astonished. Really – you’re aspiring to meanness? If meanness is your favorite note to hit, you need to stop singing because you’re ruining the harmony of the human choir. But then the stupid unfixable things you once said careen back at you and you realize that perhaps you can’t be judgmental. The gremlins in your brain whisper: You turned down the job, moved out of state, lost that case, did not fully contribute to your 401(k) despite what Suze Orman said, and almost all of the plans you have made have veered from their intended path onto some odd celestial map. Yet, somehow here you are and your brother and cousin are standing before you with a birthday cake alight with so many candles that something in your brain clicks back to seventh grade vocabulary and you finally comprehend the word conflagration: 1.n.a large disastrous fire.2. conflict. Maybe the key is to move forward with the knowledge, but not the baggage. Dump that and focus on experience and gratitude. Simultaneously expand your vision to see all of the possibilities before you, and then narrow it to focus on what truly matters. And when your wife flashes you a quick smile from behind the drum kit where she is tapping and flowing her way through a song rocking out from Lucky Jack, the band that practices in your basement, and you gaze across the yard at so many of the people who you love, you don’t need to make a wish as you blow out the candles because you already have everything. August 2012